


Wild and Wooly Presents: Diana and Akko

by KriegsaffeNo9



Series: The Great Collapse [5]
Category: Little Witch Academia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bikers, Anxiety, Bathing/Washing, Bikers, Broom Rally, Carrying, Cuddling & Snuggling, DC Comics Cameo, Diakko Week, Dianakko Week, F/F, Giant Spiders, Marijuana, Oh God A Fan Kid Appears, Poetry, Rap (Subtype: Terrible), Slapstick, Sucy Potion Mishap, Suddenly--Weed Dreams!, You will literally never guess who
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-09-26 09:53:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20387794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KriegsaffeNo9/pseuds/KriegsaffeNo9
Summary: It's year three of our reign, and the hits keep comin'.Day 1: (Starcrossed) Two star-crossed biker gang leaders battle against fate and Sucy.Day 2: (Competition) Akko battles anxiety and Diana in the broom relay race, all while reminiscing about the good times.Day 3: (How/When They Fell In Love) At slam poetry night, Diana expresses herself, and Akko, too.Day 4: (Moving In) After a bad night, Akko (and Lotte) switch rooms.  Diana helps Akko get comfortable.Day 5: (Physical Affection) In which Akko reveals the three (or is it four?) ways she helps Diana cope with anxiety.Day 6: (Adulthood) An ordinary day in the life of Akko and Diana and Hildegarde.Day 7: (Spooky) Creature in the sky fell into a hole.  Now there's a hole in the sky.





	1. The Booty Brothers

In the depths of the dormitory card game room, a secret and terrifying act was underway.

"One day," Lotte said, switching on the lamp, "at the crack of dawn, Akko and Diana wake up, full of energy." The lamp cast a warm glow on a little doll diorama, a small plush Diana and Akko lying on a bed. "What do you suppose they get up to?"

Annabel hummed, then held her hand out over Akko. "I think they would very obviously have breakfast first." She selected Diana instead, moving her to a kitchen. "I'm thinking she cooks a nice couple of omeletes and brews some tea. ... Are there any dice I should be rolling?"

"Oh, no!" Lotte said. "This is pure imagination." She took the Akko doll and waddled her over to the kitchen. "'Mornin', Di! Mm' mm', I'm smellin' some de-licious food! Whoops I tripped.'" She flopped the Akko doll face-down on the kitchen floor.

Annabel nodded and moved Diana over. "'There, there,'" she said, "'let me patch you up real quick.' Uh... she casts Cure Light Wounds." She made a sparkly little sound effect.

"'Oh, thank you, Di!'" Lotte said, standing up the Akko doll and planting a peck on the Diana doll's face, more or less on the mouth. "'You're so wonderful and beautiful. I could just kiss you all day.'"

"'If we kiss all day, we won't have time to eat...'"

"'Oooh, ooh! Food!'" Lotte sat the doll in the kitchen chair and bobbed its head at the plate. "Your food is impeccably delicious, Diana. Won't you have some?"

"Of course," Annabel said, sitting her doll opposite Akko.

"What a nutritious, filling meal they have," Lotte said, with a sigh. "They're gonna have such a wonderful time today."

"Nope," Sucy said, flinging a glowing purple potion onto the diorama, splashing both dolls.

"Dude!" Annabel said. "What was that about?"

Lotte squealed and went for her wand. "Please say that won't stain!"

"Oh, it won't stain _physically_," Sucy said. "But it will give them a _very interesting_ time today."

"What do you mean by 'them?'" Annabel said.

"You know... Akko and Diana."

"The dolls?" Lotte said, drawing the moisture out of the dolls with a spell.

"...You weren't doing some kind of proxy magic thing?" Sucy said. "I thought you were, given the whole..."

"We were roleplaying," Annabel said.

"...with dolls?"

"Like we don't use miniatures when we play Savage Worlds!" Lotte scoffed.

"Yo, there's a lot of difference between what we do and what this is." Sucy sniffed. "Also, maybe I should've mentioned this like a minute ago, but we absolutely should not be breathing any of these fumes."

Lotte and Annabel held still over the little doll table for a moment before flopping unconscious on top of it.

"Lightweights," Sucy said. "I've breathed the fumes in all damn morning and I'm not even a li--" She held in place for a few moments before joining the unconscious witch and little person.

* * *

"Mornin', Diana!" Akko said, walking into Diana's room's kitchenette and immediately tripping and breaking her nose on the back of a chair. "Whoops, I tripped!" She hopped back onto her feet in an instant.

"Ah," Diana said, "I can fix that." She crossed the table and tapped Akko on her busted-ass, blood-gushing nose. "_Cure light wounds_."

With faint sparkly sounds, Akko's nose unfucked itself. "Whee!" Akko said, hopping with excitement. "Now I can smell your delicious omelets that you made!"

"Yes, you can," Diana said, taking her seat. "Let's enjoy."

Akko sat down likewise. "Let's!" She dove her face onto her plate and scarfed down her omelet in seconds like a bear gulping down a salmon.

"Hungry today, aren't we?" Diana said, smiling as she cut off the first piece of her breakfast.

"Like a mofo," Akko said, dabbing at her mouth with a napkin. "I was out all night hunting the king of the hobgoblins."

"What was he up to? Or was it just for sport?"

"Oh, he stole Lotte's homework."

"...why would one of the staff try to steal a student's homework?"

"It was for culinary witchcraft class," Akko said. "She baked this freakin' crazy-lookin' blueberry pie, smelled like heaven, and she set it on the windowsill to cool like you do with a pie, and--"

There was a ghostly splash.

Diana moved a damp lock of hair out of her eye. "Are you alright?" she said, after a moment's hesitation.

"Heck," Akko said, quoting a meme. "Very wet." She squeezed her hairblob, getting it no less dry.

"Agreed," Diana said, standing up. "I can wait a little longer for breakfast. Let's--"

The two held still for a moment, then flopped into awkward piles where they stood.

* * *

An interval of darkness.  
Then, a light.  
Two lights.  
Two spotlights.  
Shining on...

* * *

The Manbavaran family abode.

Witness it: palatial, stunning, an elegant thumb jutting up sore from the mean streets of New York (I guess). And on the roof are its two occupants.

Akko adjusted the fit of her badass leather jacket, her bitchin' Two-Tank Omen Gang riding jacket, midnight-blue with the triple-six logo of her gang on the back. "Mother," she said, "I am going out to ride with the other Omens because I am a bitchin' badass biker bitch and that's just what I do when it's night out!"

Her mother, Sucy Manbavaran, thrust an accusing finger at Akko. Her gigantic breasts heaved, in spite of the motion of her hand should logically have at best caused a slight, cat-walking-slightly-too-close-to-the-Jell-O wiggle. "You will have no such good a time, young lady, not while you live on my house!"

"Oh yeah?" Akko said. She walked to the right, the spotlight following her to a bitchin' bike. She straddled it, revved the engine, and puttered off the roof, screaming the entire five-story drop. She hit the ground with a catastrophic sound of cracking steel and splintered fiberglass. "I'm cool!" Akko said, walking her mutilated bike down the street.

"Damn it," Sucy said, sighing tittily.

Akko walked her bike a few houses down to the Biker Bar, a badass biker bar that looked like a marginally substandard Dairy Queen. Skate-clad waitresses brought badass bikers their potent whiskey and terrible beer.

(Every last one of them, biker and carhop, being cardboard standees shuffling and gliding along.)

And waiting here was her beloved, Diana, her frilly red dress billowing in the wind as she stood astride her own badass bike. The leather jacket she wore over the dress bore the cyborg butterfly logo of her own biker gang, Steel Beach.

"Akko!" she said, holding out a white rose. "I'm so glad you could escape that vile harridan you call a mother!"

"I mean," Akko said, hopping off her bike and wincing as it crashed onto its side. "...crap, that sounded like the rearview that survived the last fall. Er--I mean, she is my mom, you know! Like, actual mother. So I'm calling her mom because she kinda is my mom?"

"I understand that," Diana said. "I meant that she's such a harridan that she's not worthy of the title."

"Oh. Oh! I get it! Yeah, heck that heckin' hecker. But good news, tonight the night is ours and we can love without being judged for it! Amirite, Lotte?"

Lotte, the only carhop who was a person in a stupid costume and not a cardboard cutout of the same, skated nervously into view with a pair of milkshakes precariously balanced on her head. "Y-y-y-you're right, Akko! Please take these from me before I trip and make a huge mess."

"Of course," Diana said, the two taking their drinks from Lotte, who slunk to her knees in relief. "Please, if only for tonight, let us celebrate the freedom of youth and the beating of our loving hearts."

"Can I do a musical number?" Akko said.

"Please don't."

"Oh thank God I hoped you would say no." The two drank.

Lotte crawled off behind the bar, where, to her incredible relief, she found a seated Annabel, nearly lost in a giant lacy cloud of a dress. She was sipping a mojito.

"What the hell is going on," Annabel said.

"Sucy used a hallucination spell on us," Lotte said. "It's like we're trapped in the story of two beautiful biker babe gang leaders whose love is forever divided by their gang allegiances!"

"Oh, that's all. I think I've written about eight of these. So do we just go with the flow and it'll all work out?"

"Yes! Except when we wake up any changes it makes to us carry over to the real world, so if something bad happens..."

"If we die in the game, we die for real. Mother _pus bucket_."

"Good news! This isn't my first rodeo potion. If we just steer the plot so that it's a nice, happy, fluffy little musical adventure where everybody's happy at the end, we'll be safe and everything will be just fine!"

"I see one problem with this," Annabel said.

* * *

Akko returned home, climbing back to the top story of the mansion where Sucy was waiting for her. She felt for a handhold and wound up yanking the gutter free; her speech was interrupted by trying to not fall. "And furthermore!!" Akko said, resuming her epic monologue--"I'm gonna marry that rival biker. Even if it means having to battle my love interest's mother in a biker duel!" She rolled onto the roof at last, panting for breath. She seriously needed to climb more.

"Like hell you are," Sucy said, squeezing her weightful orbs with the sides of her arms because she needed to do something with both of those body parts. Both pairs? All four of them? You get me. "The only woman who'll be marrying my daughter is _me_!"

"Holy _shit_," Annabel said, audible from the Biker Bar.

Akko dabbed. "I refuse!"

"You can run," Sucy said, producing an engagement ring from inside her mouth and holding it out with her tongue, "uu can iide, ut you an't e'ape my ov." She spat the ring, which whistled through the air and _splanch_ed onto Akko's ring finger.

"Oh, dang it!" Akko said. "My memetic dance moves have doomed me again!"

"And now I will marry you," Sucy said, advancing on Akko.

Akko backflipped off the roof and landed in a rose bush. After a few minutes untangling herself from thorny vines, she limped over to her destroyed motorcycle and walked it back to Biker Bar. Diana was waiting, reclining dramatically upon her bike. "So," Akko said, "I kinda got some bad news?"

"You're telling me," Annabel said, popping out of hiding with Lotte at her side.

"Oh shit it's an alive doll!" Akko said, picking her motorcycle up and flinging it at Annabel's face. Anabel squeaked in terror and her and Lotte dove for cover, the bike crashing through a window. After a few moments it exploded deep inside.

"Phrasing!" Lotte said. "--oh, goodness, it's been so long. Feels... feels so good."

"I'm not even in the mood to ask what was 'phrasing,'" Annabel said, trying to unfrazzle her hair with her hands.

"Mother!" Diana said, gesturing dramatically at Annabel. "Though you have forbidden me from--"

"Honey," Annabel said, "I seriously don't care what you do, just do it with all your heart and I'll be fine with it."

"I want to marry Akko."

Annabel clapped. "Rock and roll. Let's throw you two a wedding."

Diana blinked. "...excuse me?"

"Hell yeah!" Akko said, pumping her fist. "Anticlimactic happy ending comin' our--" Sucy's engagement ring pulsed red and pumped Akko full of white-hot lightning.

"Phras--oh, no, that was deliberate," Lotte said. "I mean oh no, Akko!"

Diana reached for a wand that she didn't have. "...curse it all!" she said, jump-kicking open an emergency bike repair kit on a pole nearby. She liberated a pair of wire cutters, tied a grounding wire to the handles, pulled on some heavy rubber gloves, and attempted to pry the ring off of Akko. With some dedicated tugging, and some help from Lotte and Annabel, she failed to do so, all three ladies landing in an awkward pile with a melting bolt cutter in Diana's hands.

The shock finally subsided and Akko crumpled to the ground, babbling in pain.

"Alright," Diana said, throwing the cutters aside and helping Lotte and Annabel to their feet. "It appears that removing the ring is not an option."

"No shit," Annabel said. "What's gonna happen if we let Sucy marry Akko?"

"I don't know," Lotte said, "but it's Sucy, so... I mean, I love her, but, you know, I love bees, right? And I'm still not going to put my hand in a hive and feel around for the little bee babies to pet because I know if I do then it's gonna be very bad for me and the bees too."

"Because of the poison," Annabel said, nodding.

"Am I alive?" Akko said.

"Yes," Diana said, moving to hug her. The ring activated again, shocking both of them this time.

Annabel furrowed her brow. "Lolo, I'm gonna need your help here. If I were writing this, how would I go about getting this resolved?"

Lotte hugged her. "You would be brilliant, Belle."

"Thanks," Annabel said, returning the hug, "but seriously, let's think of a plan, because I think those two are a little too lost in the magic to think as clearly as us. ... And they may also be a little too zapped to help."

Diana and Akko were still getting electrocuted.

"Jesus, that looks like it hurts," Annabel said.

* * *

Sucy sashayed up to Biker Bar. "Akko!" she said. "I'm ready to get married now! You better be too, _or else_..." She put her fan (because of course she had a big hand fan, that's just how it works) on her mouth. "...uh... or else I'll poison you. Yeah, that feels like it's in my wheelhorse." [sic]

"Not a chance, mom!" Akko said, striding out of the Biker Bar with a chainsaw in hand. "Because frankly that's a little too weird!"

"Agreed," Diana said, swinging a katana demonstratively.

"Also we're here to help!" Lotte said, holding a bar stool defensively.

"Hey," Annabel said, waving a fresh mojito gently.

"You wanna marry me?" Akko said. "Then you gotta go through **the Booty Brothers**!" She held out her hand, and Diana didn't leave her hanging.

"Alright, I get it," Sucy said, fanning herself. "You guys just wanna act out 'cause you're young. Work it out of your systems and then we'll make an honest woman out of little Akko." She snapped her fingers and dozens of armed cardboard cutouts appeared around her. "Get 'em, boys!"

Akko whistled, and the Two-Tank Omens popped up around her. Diana likewise rang a dainty bell that conjured forth her Steel Beach warriors. "Let's have us an ol' fashioned gang fight," Akko said.

"Let it be so!" Sucy said, and her warriors charged.

"_Yayayayayayyaowww_!" ullulated Akko, swinging her roaring chainsaw overhead as she and Diana lead the counter-charge.

It was over in five seconds, favoring the two actual human women with sharp objects.

"Good job, team!" Akko said, saluting her fellow bikers. "...team?"

"They're all dead," Diana said, indicating the cutouts lying on the ground.

"Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" Akko said, screaming her rage to the heavens. "I'm gonna get my chainsaw-shaped revenge on you, mom!"

"Oh yeah?" Sucy said, grabbing her dress's neckline. The other ladies braced for the worst, but Sucy simply flung her outfit aside, revealing a much larger wedding dress beneath it. "Could you chainsaw your mother and her enormous breasts on her wedding day?"

She leaned forward and her falsies slipped free and _splap_ped on the ground, revealing her flesh-tone sports bra beneath.

"Wait!" Lotte said, gently pushing Akko away from Sucy with her chair, "If you hurt her, then... uh... there will be... legal repercussions?"

"I'm afraid she's right," Diana said. "That's manslaughter, minimum."

"Therefore, you must marry me," Sucy said, trying to re-stuff her dress as discretely as she could manage.

"Wait," Annabel said, pushing ahead of the witches. "Miss... Sucy, I'm guessing?"

"Yes."

"I happen to be the mother of Diana," she said. "How's about we settle things by marrying each other?"

"Do what now?" Sucy said.

"Seeing as how my daughter wants to marry your daughter, and my husband... melted... during the manned mission to Venus... I've been lonely and desperately in need of companionship. This way you don't have to do all sorts of outrageous crimes and we can both be satisfied."

"One," Sucy said, "if I marry you, I'm basically marrying my dads, so hell no. Two, what makes you think I care about crimes? My daughter's a bike something and I only care that she's seeing other women. And last but far from least, I'm glad you're a widowed spinster, because when I finish marrying Akko, I'm gonna--"

Lotte, who had taken the opportunity to sneak up on her during her speech, smashed her in the back of the head with the stool. Sucy struggled to keep on her feet before descending into the loving arms of that devilish lover Concussion.

"Take a seat," Lotte said, and Akko applauded. "Oh thank you! I was working on that one and I hoped it was good!"

"It was super good, gee gee, barmaid I've never seen before." Akko pat her on the back. "Now, what do we do?"

Annabel mouthed the words.

"Wanna... get married?" Lotte said.

Akko looked at Diana.

Diana held out her hand; Akko took it, squeezing it tight.

"It would make me happier than I've ever been," Diana said.

"Let's light this candle called 'matrimony,'" Akko said, and she kissed Diana.

Diana popped her leg; it was that kind of a kiss.

Lotte sparkled. "Oh, man! It's so cute! ... Do you know how to perform a wedding?"

"I've written enough, I should be able to fake it," Annabel said, tying on a priest's collar. "Alright, on the count of three--"

* * *

Annabel and Lotte woke up at the table. Sucy didn't.

"Is she dead?" Annabel said.

Lotte checked, listening for her breathing. "No, she's alright! ... Or at least she's alive! ... We should bring her to Diana."

"Don't you have a school nurse?" Annabel said.

"Yes," Lotte said, "and we try to keep her out of our lives."

* * *

Akko toweled off the last of the phantom potion residue from her hair. "Well, that was fun," she said.

"I've had worse days," Diana said, pouring Akko a cup of water. "At least I didn't fall into a hole and turn into a monster."

"Yet," Akko said. "It's fixin' to be that time of year again. Speaking of, you sure you don't wanna try that 'leash' idea?"

"I'm going to need either a little more alcohol, a little more Xanax, or substantially more medicinal marijuana, before I can make a decision."

"Wait..." Akko said. "You aren't on medi-weed, are you?"

"I..." Diana was suddenly transfixed by the clock. They had been under the potion's effects for about ten minutes. "I don't know. Some days I wake up with a very particular smell stuck in my nose and... oh, it's nothing."

"Yeah," Akko said, giving her girlfriend a hug from behind. "We have crazy-weird enough lives. What's a little phantom weedsmoke between girlfriends?"

* * *

Sucy suddenly sprang awake as a carpet of spirits began to pick her up. "'mup!" she said. "I'm up. I'm cool. We're good." She lurched up to her feet, or perhaps some other, hidden locomotors secreted within her skirt. "So, that was fun, right?"

"No," Annabel said.

"Well, then," Sucy said, producing a lighter, "we can get rid of this proxy-magic diorama."

"Hey!" Lotte said, rushing Sucy, and being just a little too late to stop her from dropping the lighter right where the dolls were.

The entire diorama burst into flames as if it were soaked in kerosene.

Lotte magicked the fire off of the diorama and into an adorable little spirit. She crushed the spirit against her forehead like a beer can and stuffed the mana into her wand.

"It's _not_ proxy magic!" Lotte said.

"You're sure about that?" Sucy said. "Because you're a spirit witch and you have an unhealthy doll fixation, and frankly, judging by your search history, I'm starting to suspect you're into all sorts of weird shit in addition to the dolls and the polyamory. ... Which is why we have so much in common." She smiled like a shark.

"I swear, it's not!" Lotte said.

* * *

Upstairs in Diana's room, Akko and Diana burst into flames for a just a few seconds.

"...What just happened," Akko said, increasing her hold-strength.

"That... that wasn't a monster hole, right?" Diana said. "That we just fell in?"

"I don't know," Akko said. "But on the count of three, I'm going to walk us to the shower, and we're gonna stay in there until we know we're not gonna light on fire again."

"Good... that's a good idea."

They didn't burst into flame again... that day, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate Title: [Because The Night--!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEHBHXfO66E)


	2. Clam Ambush

Akko woke up and said "It's three days to the second annual broom relay." She screamed: "_Oh my God it's three days and I haven't practiced!_"

Prof. Finneran looked over her shoulder. "Please lower your voice, Kagari."

"Oh, shit, I fell asleep in class again!" Akko continued screaming. "My life is falling apart around me and I don't know what I'm gonna do!"

One seat in front of her, Jasminka fished Sunshine Goodness out of her vest pocket. She held the little baby opossum over her head and gently squeezed her tummy; the marsupial horked a little white pill right into Akko's mouth mid-scream. She swallowed it reflexively and the Xanax soon kicked in.

"Oh... oh, thank you," Akko said, settling down into her seat at last. "Oh, phew. Oh, man. That's really..." She flopped face-first onto her textbook and fell asleep once more.

"And the cycle begins anew," Sucy said, tapping a needle full of anti-Xanax to get the bubbles out. From several seats away, Diana fired off a blast that disintegrated the needle. "Zhardammit, nobody lets me have any fun," Sucy said, crossing her arms in fury.

* * *

The New Nine, minus the adults, met in the common room by the Eternal Chair Fire after class let out.

"This is a new experience for me," Diana said, stroking Akko's hair. Akko was asleep in her lap, snoring contently. "Traditionally I have been on... the 'receiving side' of comfort in anxiety. Thank you again for your help, Jasminka."

"No problem," Jazzy said, taking a bite of baklava and offering a bite to Sunshine Goodness. Sunny sniffed the baked good, then chlorped it up and chewed it open-mouthed. "We've all been packed to the gills with save-Diana stuff in case you get monstered out again, or have a panic attack, or get spoiled. ... Hey, when did she get spoiled, again? I think that's what got us..."

"Shh," Lotte said. "Let's not think hard about the timeline. That's bad for the brain. ... Anyway. Akko hasn't practiced on account of being quite busy! Or unconscious from the anxiety medication."

"Poor thing can't take a half miligram..." Diana said, patting Akko's hairblob.

"What a delicious conundrum," Sucy said. "Too busy freaking out to practice, and too busy being incredibly stupid to practice when she's not freaking out. She's doomed. I should dig her a grave."

"Have any of you been practicing, actually?" Diana said.

There was a general rumbling of malaise from five of the New Nine.

"I've got this side hustle going? And it's been getting in the way of my broom practice?" Amanda said. "Plus I don't have a new cheating scheme? So yeah, I can take an L on this one, no problem."

"I'm catering!" Jazzy said.

"At least I have an excuse," Sucy said. "I've been barred from competing." She tapped her ankle bracelet. "On account of the felony."

"...as they rightly ought," Diana said.

"So, have you been practicing?" Lotte said.

"Yes," Diana said. "Every day, fastidiously. I've been waiting to face you all in the field of battle once more. Especially Akko." She pressed the back of her hand against Akko's cheek. "I've been waiting for some time we can--test ourselves, I suppose. In some way that doesn't involve me falling into a hole and coming out a monster."

"...like in [that nightmare we all keep having](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12164865)?" Sucy said, rubbing a phantom pain from her wrist.

"Or the time Diana got bit by a possum, fell down a hole, and [thought she was a monster](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13390959)," Jasminka said, stroking Sunshine Goodness's long hairless tail.

"Or the time she slipped into a black hole and [got turned into a bunny monster](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15296436/chapters/35597055) by that rabbit man, so I heard!" Lotte said.

"I know where you can get a leash rated for a human," Amanda said, raising her eyebrow extra hard. "I know you're thinking about it. 'Cause Akko told me."

Diana rubbed her temple. Just the one; it wasn't that bad a day yet.

"Speaking of weird, recurring nightmares, though," Sucy said. "You had that dream where [Akko fell out a window and turned into a monster](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11960940), right?"

"I did," Diana said.

"...[do we really just have the one motif?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes)" Lotte said.

"Well," Sucy said, "if there's one thing I learned from these weird, vivid nightmares that everyone in my social circle share in exacting detail, it's this: when Akko is put in a corner, she suddenly goes Super Saiyan and does crazy shit that nobody could foresee happening. So..." She pat Diana's back with her shoe. "Just keep the drugs flowing and she'll do fine."

Akko snored extra loud.

"...mmph," Diana said. "I'll see if I can't help her practice these last few days anyhow. A little is more than none. This is mathematically, objectively true."

* * *

Akko got no practice the next three days.

* * *

Akko woke up with a start. "Where am I?" she said.

She looked around. Let's see, witches on brooms to her left, witches on brooms to her right, a wooden platform beneath her feet, a twisty course of trees behind her, the sky overhead--

"Oh shit, it's race day!" she said. "Oh shit, I've been sleeping and screaming and not practicing!"

"It's alright!" Diana shouted from three witches away. "Just let go of your fear and you'll do fine!"

"But I don't wanna let go of my fear!" Akko said. "If I stop being scared the Xanax will send me straight to Dream Bunny! And that guy's been real sketchy lately, let me tell you!"

"Well... then... use the fear!" Diana said.

Wangari's voice raining from above interrupted the chat.

"Good mid-morning, Luna Nova!" she said from the perch of her hot-air balloon steered haphazardly by Kimberly while Joanna got footage. "And good morning, livestream watchers! Your favorite school reporter Wangari is here to emcee this majestic and groundbreaking broom relay race!"

"I'm here too," Sucy said. "Sucy Manbavaran. You can call me God."

"Sucy works just fine too," Wangari said. "Now, first-timers, here's the rundown of the race rules..."

"How am I supposed to use the fear, though?!" Akko said. Her hands were trembling, thus her broom was trembling, thus her legs were trembling. "Like, what should I be imagining? I've never had to use fear before! Usually I just run away from the thing I'm scared of or, like, shoot it!"

Diana felt for the right words. "...Do you remember [when we spent that day in Blytonbury?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12125163/chapters/27579405) Holiday Inn? Trader Vic's?"

"I do!" Akko said, nodding.

"Remember when I had the violent panic attack? And you were there?"

"Yeah?"

"Remember how you got me down from it?"

"By punching you!" Akko said.

"Well--the punching may not be necessary. But when you were afraid, you did the thing that you felt was most right to do. Find that feeling, embrace it, and you'll be fine."

Sucy spoke up again: "Remember, kids, if you die painfully, Nurse Horowitz will be here to stitch you together and raise you as a lich. She's been waiting all year for this, don't be a spoilsport and keep all your limbs attached."

Akko squealed.

"And ignore Sucy," Diana said.

"I _caaaaaan't_..."

"And last, but not least," Wangari said, "we dedicate this race to our broom-riding teacher Adrian Nelson. Rest in peace."

The loudspeakers crackled. "I'm not freakin' dead, you jackasses!" Prof. Nelson said over them.

"Oh! Oh, sorry," Wangari said, "My mistake. I could have sworn you did, though. Like, is anyone else having that dream lately?"

"We all are," Nelson said, "witch dreams are weird like that. ... Just to be clear I'm still keepin' that dedication. Ride or die, broom jockeys!"

"You heard the lady!" Wangari said. "On your marks, stage 1 relay people!"

Akko closed her eyes and gripped her broom as hard as she could, perhaps to still the shakes. Deep breaths... lots and lots of deep breaths very quickly...

"Get set... and go!" Wangari said.

In the distance there was a massive explosion.

"Good God!" Wangari said. "So much cheating happened all at once that the first relay stage has exploded! And, ah, we're just gonna go ahead... yes, we're going to start at relay stage 2. On your marks--dispatching rally rings--"

"Man, look at all that aerosolized blood raining down at the starting line," Sucy said, "it's like somebody microwaved some blood-flavored aluminum."

"--dial it down a smidge, Manbavaran, now go!"

Akko squealed.

"And they're off," Sucy said. "Go, humans, go."

"Use the fear," Akko said. "Use the fear. Use the fear..."

Akko embraced the fear and collapsed into a terrified puddle on the platform, cradling her broom and rocking side to side, whimpering and crying.

A lightbulb clicked on in Diana's head. "Akko!" she said. "If you can't use fear... then how about switching tracks to anger?"

"Anger?" Akko said. "I... think... I see... where... you're going!" She fished around in her pocket for her phone, clicked it on, and scrolled to a news piece that she had shoved to the bottom of her feed out of sheer despair:

SPIDER-MAN OUT OF THE MCU! Update: SPIDER-MAN BACK IN THE MCU! Update: SPIDER-MAN BACK OUT OF THE MCU! Update: SPIDER-MAN OUT OF THE MCU, RAZORBACK AND TURNER D. CENTURY REMAIN! Update: SPIDER-MAN'S BACK, BITCHES! Update: BACK TO SONY FOREVER AND ALWAYS; MILES MORALES RUSHED TO HOSPITAL AFTER STABBING BY UNIDENTIFIED ORC.

The terror, once overwhelming, fell away like fog against the fury of a noon sun. She stood back up, astride her broom, brow furrowed, face draining of color as her blood rushed to her striking limbs and halteres (a pen she taped to her lower back; the idea came to her after reading Wikipedia while on some Ambien. Not Diana's, she didn't take Ambien; just some Ambien, the nature of the drug removing its own origin from her mind).

She glanced over her shoulder and saw Lotte on foot, running at top speed from a pack of (1d3+2)x20 untamed swine. A pack of other witches were right in front of her, trading blasts and the occasional kick.

"I can hardly believe my eyes!" Wangari said. "The rampant cheating makes last year's rally look downright tame in comparison! 'Guess it's No-Rules Tuesday!' ... Eh? Eh? Who else saw _Alita_?"

"The eyes, dude," Sucy said.

"What! What about the eyes!"

"Why does everybody have those little beady bug eyes except the heroine? And she ain't exactly got doe eyes herself. Is that some weird fetish of James Cameron's?"

"Everybody has to pitch a fit about the friggin' eyes, it's an artistic thing--"

"Because," Sucy said, speaking extra-loudly, "I am definitely not opposed to beady little bug eyes--oh, the third stage is beginning. Anyway, speaking of useful things you can do with tiny eyes--"

Eight witches down the line, the first witch reached the platform and handed off her ring, her classmate rushing off. Then Diana retrieved her ring; she didn't hesitate before taking off and hurtling down the track. Lotte climbed onto the platform in time for Akko to be third-to-last.

"Oh my God," Lotte gasped, waving the ring, "maybe you should lie low and--"

"HrrraaaaaaAAA DAMN YOU COMIC BOOK LEGAL CRAP! AAAAAAAAGGGGH!" Akko shrieked, launching off the platform with sheer muscle power, leaving a big splintery crater behind her. "Tia... the second word is super hard to spell!"

And she was off with a small sonic boom that shook the leaves off the trees and sent the tameless shoats fleeing for less-challenging prey.

The rally ring was clenched in her teeth, the wind shrieking past her ears. Witch after witch fell behind her, and soon, it was just Diana ahead of her. As it should be.

Akko shouted something meaningful, but it was lost to the wind and the ring, and she wasn't really paying attention to her own words, truth be told, so she just lay flat against her broom and threaded the needle in a speed-boost ring floating in the air, pushing her to speeds she had only known as theoretical. She twirled past Diana, managing to shout "TAKIN' THE LEAD, BABE!" in the seconds before she flew into a thick grove of pine trees.

For there was a curve, you see; Diana avoided the speed boost so as to not eat pine tar.

She rounded the bend, hugged the inner curves, straight-up running along old growth trees to tighten her turning radius, and Akko burst free of the treeline ahead of her, drizzling pine needles. Diana wove under her, but Akko had a higher top speed, and inched ahead far enough that she could just spit her mouthful of pine cones into Diana's path.

"Gah--" Diana said, parrying the cones with her wand, not even bothering with a spell just yet.

"Guess what?!" Akko said. "I'm faster than you, I'm cooler than you, and I'm super sticky!" She dangled from the broom by her forearm, tugging down her lower eyelid and sticking out her tongue. She body-checked a speed ring, sticking fast to it (what with the pine tar) and getting dragged along by her broom (which couldn't really stop now even if she wanted). The drag gave

Diana opportunity to dart past her.

"Fly safe," Diana said. The next obstacle was a net of giant spider web, thick golden bands of sticky web with perilously tiny gaps. The smallest were along the inner curve, the better to force fliers to choose between speed and safety, and Diana decided to enjoy both.

She held her breath, grasped her broom with both hands, and climbed up to the flight cap, which she grasped firmly as he swung her body out and in front, leading with her toes.

"Sweet Shudde M'ell!" Wangari said as Diana thwipped through the layers and layers of spider-web-netting. "Good thing we have those built-in modesty whatsits under our skirts or that would be revealing as all get-out!"

"I trimmed my modesty shorts off," Sucy said. "Bet you wish I wore a shorter skirt today... or ever."

Diana cleared the last layer of webs. She swung under her broom, mounting it upside-down, and saw Akko overhead.

She was heavily webbed and trailing dozens of spiders the size of beach balls. "Hi, Di," Akko said, and flopped down on Diana. Diana hit the airbrakes and tried to undershoot Akko, only to be tangled in her web amidst a heavy group of gigantic banana spiders.

"Good morning," Diana said through grit teeth.

"Hey," one of the giant golden orb-weaver spiders said.

"Do you accept bribes?"

"I think I could. What you got in an 'alive animal' kind of vein?"

Akko flew through what looked like a speed hoop and was actually a barnacle portal leading into a deadly clam ambush. Towers of snapping, sessile beasts surrounded them on all sides, the only hope for escape well ahead and behind a massive horror of a bivalve.

Diana flung a telekinetic lash at a bundle of barnacles and foisted them into the web.

"Looks tasty," the spider said. "Alright, bribe accepted. What are we being bribed to do, now?"

Diana pointed up at Akko; she was busy in gorilla form wrestling the ultra-clam. She hadn't stopped or anything, she had hopped off the broom, onto the barnacle, and then back onto the broom with the barnacle in tow. Admittedly it was lowering her top speed something fierce. "See her? Bite her."

"Got it," the spider said, and issued a shrill, whistling command to her brood. The spiders launched at the barnacle and dragged it screaming into an exposed magma vent, destroying all of them.

"Huh!" Akko said. "Guess the barnacle was a girl!"

"You heard all that?" Diana said, surprised.

"Yeah, man. Gorillas got crazy-good hearing, or else I do--HOLE!"

Her broom flew through the portal; the wooden frame clotheslined her in the head, knocking her out. She returned to her human shape and fell limp, leg slipping against her broom; she plummeted towards the endless barnacle abyss, and Diana TK-whipped her leg with a mighty shout, pulling her into the web just behind her, tagging her in place (the pine tar helped) just before the last of the web flitted through the portal. The portal self-destructed behind them.

Diana muttered to herself, and summoning the fullness of her strength yanked back on the web. Akko's broom angled straight up, then just a little backwards, and as gravity and G forces did their work with helping Diana's pull-strength managed to spin out and lose forward momentum.

The witches flew up and around the broom like a yoyo in the midst of a painfully-failing trick, Diana trying to right her own ride and get ready for something like a docking action. She stalled out; she'd spent too much mana too quickly. And now they were falling.

They landed with the messy tangle of webbing thrown over the broom, and the two witches smacked into each other like those little plastic clacker toys, you know the kind.

Diana protected her head, but the impact knocked the wind out of her, and the broom, so heavily laden and with Akko in the depths of Concussionland, floated awkwardly back to Earth. The girls lay in a pile of web on dewy mid-morning grass; and now that Diana was cuddled against Akko, she too was needly-sticky with pine tar.

Diana rest her wand on Akko's head. "_Smil venter dig_," she said, casting a resucitation spell.

Akko bolted upright. "I'm awake! I'm a..." She blinked. "Oh... huh. I think I flew a little too angry."

"A smidge," Diana said. "But are you scared anymore?"

"Nope!" Akko giggled. "Man, that's... it's like knowing it was coming was worse than the thing itself, you know? ... Is that what you feel like all the time?"

"Yes. It is."

Silently, Akko scooped Diana into a massive hug. Diana returned it.

"You're really brave," Akko said.

Diana nuzzled her cheek against Akko's. "Thank you."

Somewhere up ahead, Wangari and Sucy's balloon swooped across the finish line.

"Yeah, bitches!" Wangari said. "Surprise victory by the Wangari-Sucy power couple!"

"Mess with us, and you'll get soil," Sucy said.

"Dudes!" Nelson interrupted via intercom... hacking? Sure, let's go with that. "That was awesome! That's a first in an event that's mostly composed of firsts!"

"Survivors!" Wangari said. "Pick yourselves up! Casualties! Prepare to get worked over by Nurse Horowitz, you poor bastards! And anyone who's got a locomotor and a drinkin' mouth, we're throwing a party at the Crimson Corsairs' place! Afterpar-ty-y-y-y!"

"Pass," Akko said. "How's about pizza and a movie?"

"But first," Diana said, "a show... er..." Diana looked at the place in air where the barnacle portal had opened. "...did... did that count as my requisite hole-fall?"

"No," Akko said. "You'd be all monstered out if you were."

"...maybe I should see Amanda about that leash..."

Halfway across campus at the first aid tent, Lotte said "Phrasing!" to the consternation of the student volunteer who was spraying her mouth full of hydrogen peroxide... for some reason known only to Nurse Horowitz.

"I think that's a good idea. ... Shower first," Akko said. "Especially in case we light on fire."

Still no more fire that night. They watched Mad Max: Fury Road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate Title: [I'm Flyin', Ain't Tryin'!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mkdh3625Rwg)


	3. The Ladykissers

Diana stepped forward into the harsh spotlight. She had cleared her throat before, had drunk plenty of water, had sipped a throat-relaxing tea, and without hesitation and with practiced steadiness read her slam poem.

Atsuko Kagari.  
When I first laid my eyes on you  
I didn't know I had.  
You were there, watching Shiny Chariot,  
just as I was.  
There in the dark  
wherever you were  
we shared the same fate:  
though we did not know  
that we had lost our soul  
we drank in the light  
and saw nothing but the beauty  
of a thousand points of potential  
burn bright over our heads.

Some days I wonder  
seeing you sleep  
seeing you laugh--  
seeing you spill milk down your vest  
and scramble for a towel to clean yourself up  
saying all the while  
"Sometimes I wish I had two thumbs"  
and  
later  
long after you were cleaned up  
saying  
"I meant on both hands"  
and then  
"I mean on the one  
"but also on both  
"four thumbs total"  
\--if we had met then  
when I was young  
and my mother was dying  
if I would have seen in you then  
what I see in you now  
or just a leggy clown  
tripping over her own feet.

I hated you first.  
You embarrassed yourself with glory  
in triumph over the cockatrice  
and from my cage  
your freedom was an affront  
and I hated you.

I saw you as a child  
too old to be forgiven  
for the excess of a child  
and I told you as much  
and you listened.

I was wrong.

From the start I was wrong.

You are a child  
in the way a child can see the world as it is  
in all the ways that it is beautiful and frightening  
and accept it for what it is  
with eyes soft and open  
with a heart soft and uncalloused  
and hold out your hand  
so soft  
so warm  
and at your touch  
where once there was none  
bring comfort.

You are a woman  
in all the ways a woman should be  
for you are strong  
and you share your strength  
and find the strength in others  
and show them where to find it  
and with your child's heart and hands  
light them and lift them.

When I am with you  
I see the bars of my cage  
golden and thorned.

When I am with you  
I see the briar-bars  
and I do not care that they are there.

When I am with you  
I see past the cage.

The thorns tear my skin as I reach for the world.

But your hand is there  
to close my wounds  
and tidy up the blood  
and kiss the pain away  
and tell me:  
"Everybody hurts  
"so it's always good  
"to have some band-aids on you."

Take my hand  
precious Akko  
and let us bathe  
in the holy spring  
that kisses away  
our pain.

I love you, Atsuko Kagari.

She lowered the page and accepted the polite applause. She stepped back, took her seat, and Akko took her turn.  
She popped her knuckles, cricked her neck, and took the microphone from its stand. "Yo, DJ, gimmie a beat!" she said. To the sound of no beat, she rapped:

My name is Akko and I'm here to say  
I love Diana in a way that's gay  
She's hot A-F and she got blonde hair  
And she got her dang legs from down here to up there  
Where you come from girl with a spell like that?  
I wanna stand underneath that hat  
It's pointy and it's long and the brim so wide  
It's like it's got all of you inside  
But mostly the part where it sits on your head  
To keep off the rain and keep you dry instead  
'Cause that's the reason we wear a hat so big  
It's black and it's stylin' like a Player 2 Stig  
Thank you New Nine for your hats so strange  
Shoutin' out the magic doctor now, Doctor Strange  
Well that's the rhyme and this Akko's out  
I love you Diana, later suckers, I'm out.

Akko bowed, the applause riotous and profound, including from Diana. "They call us the Ladykissers," Akko said. "We're here all week."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternate Title: Let's be honest, that's a title that's hard to beat. (Diana's poem is called "Leggy Clown.")


	4. The Queen's Milk

"No matter how far you travel, home is closer than you think." -- [A Cloak Called Home](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGgdNrY98Yw)  
"The fire in your eyes reveals all truths." -- Tatara Gaze

* * *

"One: viewing globe," Lotte said, setting her globe and its stand on the nightstand.

"Two,"Diana said, dropping an armload of toys onto the guest bed. "Your soft toys." She watched Lotte arrange them on the bed, putting a little blonde plush girl by her pillow.

"And three," Akko said, pointing at Traveler, "big friendly dog friend."

The Samoyed-golden-retriever cross sat at the foot of Lotte's bed, smiling gently, as he almost always did.

"Because we are going to be taking a lot of medicine," Diana said, taking Akko's hand, "and it makes him sleepy."

Lotte lay on the guest bed, pulling up the covers and wriggling inside. "Thank you, Diana," she said, taking her globe from its stand and pulling open all her chat programs.

"Sleep well," Akko said.

"You try too, okay?" Lotte said. "I mean... at last. After all this."

* * *

Birds chirped outside Diana's window. Akko saw one--a little brown one she couldn't name if she were paid to--and watched it flutter around a little bit, flapping over a strangely conspicuous hole in the roof below the window. How did nobody catch that? And why?

She had a feeling like Diana could've had it closed if she wanted. So maybe that would help get her mind off of things: ask about the mystery hole.

"Akko," Diana said, and Akko nearly jumped out of her shoes. "Oh... Black Goat, I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Akko said. "It's been a long, shitty night." She turned slowly, so that her fragile, milk-white hair wouldn't swish too much. Too much motion for this little sleep, this much on her mind.

[For she had just had a legendarily terrible night.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16006262)

Diana fiddled with the fastners on her skirt. "Is there anything you would like before we rest?"

"Well, pardner," Akko said, affecting an accent that wasn't anybody else in the world's, "I hear-tell you got somethin' for sadness in the saddle."

"I believe I may," Diana said. "If by that you mean 'marijuana' and 'Xanax.'"

"I don't think I'm super sold on Xanax?" Akko said. "It got me not freaking out but it didn't make me feel, like... super better? ... Is it alright if I have some of your weed? Is that cool?"

"It is," Diana said, placing her hand on Akko's shoulder. "I love you, Akko. I am fine with sharing my medicine with you." She breathed. "Ah, yes, that sounds absolutely terrible now that I hear it aloud."

"You really are a monster," Akko said, smiling.

* * *

Diana's bedroom smelled like weed.

There was no getting around it. She took most of her meals in her room nowadays, she smoked Girl Scout Cookie marijuana to stimulate her appetite and help treat her anxiety, and standing outside to smoke without getting swarmed by people wanting to steal or buy or "share" was near impossible, no matter where she lit up. So, in spite of all the scent-clearing smells, the odor neutralizing candles, and the occasional cloud of air freshener, her room smelled like weed.

Weed smells wet. "Dank" isn't an arbitrary slang term; it smells like a pile of fall leaves just before winter, the outer leaves dry and powdery and concealing an inner core that's still sopping wet, nurturing mushrooms. Imagine a sprinkling of aromatic herbs in this. Some say the word "skunk" and mean it. Perhaps they're right. It is pungent, let's speak truly: but good weed is invigoratingly pungent, promisingly rich. It is the smell of the Earth resting; it is the smell of future new growth.

Akko and Diana bathed together in Diana's private bathroom, rested in the hot tub in silence but for the gurgling of the bubbles, changed into fresh sleep clothes and knelt on Diana's bed.  
Diana flipped open a hardwood box. Inside was a baggy of marijuana, not her usual. "This is for sleep," she said. "The Queen's Milk. Sweet. Calms the nerves. Promotes happy dreams." She took out her pipe and one of her artifact wands, Thorn. "_Excieo ignis fatuus_." A tiny swirling flame rose from Thorn's tines, curling around the business end of Diana's bubbler.

Akko had learned that a bubbler was like a tiny bong; Diana's could fit in her hand from palm to the first knuckle of her fingers. It was made of swirled green glass; the bowl was already filled with ice-cold water, a fine mesh screen laid on top of the bowl. Diana set a nugget of aromatic Queen's Milk on the screen and the will o'wisp alit just above it. Diana puffed, then drew in a long drag. The bubbler made a noise like blowing down a straw in a drink; smoke passed through the water. She filled her lungs and took the pipe from her lips.

She gestured to Akko. Akko leaned closer, and Diana kissed her, parting her lips and breathing cool smoke into her mouth. Akko got the hint and breathed in. Even cooled, the feeling of smoke in her lungs was a startling one, and warm. She held her breath for a few seconds before hacking it all back up in a powerful, productive cough. "Ahhh, crap," Akko said, wiping her mouth on her forearm, "that sucked."

Diana smiled. "Give it a moment."

Akko lay back, breathing steadily, and soon she felt the weed kick in. The Xanax she'd taken earlier in the evening after her flashback--

\--and let's not dwell on what she saw--

\--stole away the feeling of terror and replaced it with a sleepy nonchalance. It had felt good mainly for snapping off the edge of the panic. This, though...

This just made her feel happy.

She was safe, Oryx wasn't looming overhead, and if some of his troops were, they were all the way up in orbit twiddling their thumbs and feeling stupid and they could stay there. Her arms tingled. Her head was light, like an invisible someone had taken their foot off of her.

They traded breaths like that, 'til Akko was brave enough to take a draw from the pipe herself. She handled it like a champion. "Ahaha," she said, "man... is this how people start smoking, like, regular cigarettes?"

"Tobacco's a scam, Akko," Diana said, leaning against a pile of pillows snug against the headrest. She did not further elucidate.

Akko lay next to her, and nearly jumped back up in shock. "Woah!" she said. "When did... when did these pillows..." She giggled, then properly laughed. "Oooh, it's not them! It's me! I'm all squish-y. I'm squishy like a... like..."

Diana gave her cheek a gentle pinch. "Like a stress ball. But much softer."

Akko fumbled for Diana's face and put her palm directly on her mouth. "An' you're, like... you're, uh... you're a... a... tedd... you're a..."

"Teddy bear?" Diana said.

Akko's eyes widened. "You are?!"

Diana giggled. "I might be."

"You never said... all this time..." Akko said.

"...I'm not literally."

"Oh thank God. That's... is it... I mean... I seen Lotte kiss her dolls before. Like, not cute-kiss. Like she was practicing." Akko yawned. "It was... really..." Her eyes fluttered closed, and in a few moments she was snoring.

Diana gently positioned her head, and Akko breathed more freely. Not much more freely, truth be told, but it was as healthy a sleep as Akko was capable of outside of class.

At long last, she thought.

At long last, you can sleep.

She thought, briefly, of making sure Akko wouldn't awake suddenly and in terror, but her own exhaustion swept her to sleep. For it had been a long and awful day.

* * *

Diana awoke first. She crawled out of the haze of dream and looked for a clock, realizing that she had fallen asleep on the wrong side of the bed, relative to where she preferred. She looked over Akko, who hadn't moved an inch and whose mouth was wide open, and saw that it was just past 3:30 pm. They'd fallen asleep a little before eight.

She was starving. The weed had faded but the munchies remained... or, well, she slept through breakfast and lunch.

She didn't dare wake up Akko. She could sleep as much as she wanted. As much as she needed. So she crept out of the bedroom and found Lotte, dozing on the guest bed still. Traveler hopped to his feet, tail wagging at the sight of his master.

"Come," she said, patting her thigh, and the dog padded over. She attached his service animal vest and leash. "Let's make our house guests truly welcome."

* * *

Akko jolted upright. "'mup!" she said. "It's not... too..."

It's not too what?

Her vision began to resolve. What the hell time was it? Where was Diana?

(taken again)

She scrambled for her wand, for something sharp, for anything, and found the alarm clock instead. She brought it to her face and saw that it was 7 at night.

Slept for nearly half a day.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

She sighed. "Well," she said, "at least I'm all napped up." She set the alarm clock back and smelled food and immediately went to find the food.

Diana was in the kitchenette (oh thank God) drying her hands, and Lotte was there too (oh hey, also thank God!) seated at the table, and Traveler was there (hi, Blues Traveler!) eating out of his maze-shaped feeding bowl. And the food--right! The food was on the table, and the food was...

"Is this...?" Akko said, taking what she assumed was her seat.

"I had to pull a few strings to get lamb," Diana said. "But it was worth it." She took her seat, opposite Akko's, at a plate with a few slices of lamb and a heartier helping of salad and roast eggplant than Lotte and Akko's. "Are you accustomed to pre-meal prayers, or should we just enjoy?"

"I wouldn't mind a prayer," Lotte said, holding out her hands.

"Okay..." Akko said. "Kinda my first time here. Wanna lead us, Di?"

"I do." She closed her eyes; Akko followed suit, as did Lotte. "Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young, in Your vast profusion across the stars, may we be happy knowing that we have found each other in the sea of chaos which you have birthed. May our time here be long as our tiny lives measure life against the endlessness of the Key and the Gate, and may the eye of the Nuclear Chaos be more often closed than not when we are together. _Ia_."

"Eeyah," Akko said. Diana's hand slipped from hers, and she opened her eyes and in under a second began digging into her food.

Diana watched her, smiling as Akko ravaged her food. It had been so disquieting to see Akko the way she was the day before. The awful memories of last night and this morning were a little more distant now. If she could eat, and eat like Traveler wished he could, she wasn't that bad off.

So began the brief and strange times of the newly-assembled Rhapsody in Blue.


	5. Eat My Ass, Bitch: Solving a Pirate's Riddle: The Casual Hanks Chronicles

Akko and Diana have a certain routine.

Diana has suffered from anxiety since she was little. She didn't have a name for what she felt until her early teens, when she read up on the subject of mental illness and felt a vague familiarity at the symptoms. The book was dry and the experiences given scattershot, so it wasn't until a particularly bad incident that she actually saw a therapist. She got a diagnosis at last--and a few prescriptions.

Magic can do a lot of things, but the sort of tinkering that would set a mind ill-at-ease into a state of comfort is not something it excels at. Pharmacology and talk are the preferred treatment even among witches.

But Diana has more than the drugs and the talk. She has Akko, and Akko has her.

And Akko and Diana have a certain routine.

In her mind, Akko divides it into three steps. Sometimes she goes one after the other. Sometimes she mixes it up. Sometimes it's just a little dose of one. In all cases, it's a taste of normalcy.

1\. Cuddle

When she has the time, Akko likes to cuddle.

It can be as simple as sitting next to Diana. Even if Diana's not anxious, Akko likes to cop a squat next to her--between classes, at lunch (if Lotte and Sucy aren't sharing some hot gossip or plans for the weekend), when waiting in line at the showers, when reading at the library. Usually they carry on with whatever they're doing, only the presence of each other touching--the warmth, the gravity.

But sometimes, Diana leans against her, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, and when she does that, Akko tilts her head against Di, who's tilting her head against hers. Akko gets more out of it in the tactile and olfactory senses, Diana's hair is thick and wavy, hanging about her head in casual hanks, and it always smells like fancy shampoo. It's awesome.

That's cuddling, isn't it? Nice, subtle, public cuddling.

Cuddling is long-term care, and there's a lot of room under the cuddling umbrella.

When they shower together, Akko gets to work that fancy shampoo into Diana's hair, massage her scalp, and she can soap up the places where it's a bitch and a half to reach with just your hands (though Diana, she saw, had a back scrubber for exactly that). Diana does the same for Akko; within a week of them building up the courage to bathe together, Diana bought a second set of soap and shampoo and conditioner just for Akko, and she lavishes the same attentions on Akko.

Cuddling is two-way. Give and take. And Diana loves to give, too.

Akko's hair has been much straighter, with greater volume and no split ends, and her hair blob refined into a silken hair-column, proud as the dinglebop on a plumbus. She feels awesome, and she smells like flowers and herbs instead of soap and, usually, grass from all the hard broomlandings.

Feeling Diana run a comb through her hair is a kind of cuddling. And Diana is always smiling; she can see it in the mirror, see it when she turns around, hair fanning magnificently behind her like a flash of tailfeathers.

Diana combs her own hair, though, and thank God, but Akko watches. Maybe that's not cuddling, but it's neat.

And of course, they cuddle all normal-style. Warmth against warmth. Shockingly, Akko is the firm, strong one; Diana is trim and fit, and Akko was famously a squishface, but Akko was one of those witches that, once they start to build their power, develop superhuman strength and toughness, and as of late her superstrength was truly coming in. She had killer abs, Diana was pleased to find, defined and rippling even at eighteen years, and she could pick up and carry Diana like a flower.

In a life defined by absence and untold fear, being picked up and carried around with casual ease by your bitchin' badass witch girlfriend was a thing that could dispel even the most cruel and lingering cloud of malaise.

Power lifting was a kind of cuddling, too.

But sometimes you don't have time for a cuddle. And so...

2\. Kiss

When there's not so much time, Akko likes to kiss.

More than cuddling, she does a lot of literal kissing on Diana. A peck on the cheek when they pass each other on the way to their seats in class. A swift kiss on the lips before tests, for luck. On Diana's writing hand when she rests it--and she's ambidextrous, she doesn't need to pause for any longer than it takes to switch writing hands. But she rests her hand when Akko is near, and Akko kisses the back of her hand, and she flexes her fingers in response to show that it's already getting better, and then and only then transfers her pen. She's ambidextrous; she always starts with the arm facing Akko when Akko sits next to her.

A kiss is leaving Diana a little snack. Something from the vending machines, usually. But when she has time and bread she likes to make peanut butter and whatever else we got going sandwiches. Peanut butter and almond butter. Peanut butter and marshmallows--an actual handful of marshmallows, a la The Umbrella Academy, which their entire social circle, the mighty Crimson Corsair-Verdant Viceroys-Rhapsody in Blue New Nine Power Hour, had binged at the same time. One time she made peanut butter and caviar, and Finneran, who had received the caviar as a gift from Amaranth, the deep one student but neglected to put her name on it or anything, was absolutely furious, and Diana had made a face Akko had never expected her to make at the first bite of her accidentally fancy sandwich and they had all shared a great laugh about it.

Except Finneran, but... eh, can't win 'em all.

A kiss was replacing Diana's box of peppermint tea when it was running low. Whacking her boots with a scrub-down spell on the way out of Diana's room to save her a little mana later. Gently returning Jazzy's pets to her--for from time to time Akko saw an opossum pad determinedly towards Diana's room, as if they could smell the Possum Fever long ago cured. They were cute little bastards, but if they appeared without warning in Diana's room, well, that would be no good.

Kissing is short, but the memory lingers. It is a hard reset for bad times, and it makes worse times a little less worse.

The non-metaphorical kisses are long some days, and they are intense, and perhaps they are more intimate to share than we should share at this hour, in this place. But they are good, and Diana and Akko are good at kissing.

Sometimes, though, a kiss isn't long enough, and a cuddle isn't strong enough. In such times, Akko breaks out the torture.

3\. Torture

They don't often get to sleep in the same bed.

Akko doesn't "go to bed" so often as she "crashes," for being Akko is a high-energy task, and getting to sleep is just her body deciding it's had enough and flipping the off switch. If she isn't sufficiently exhausted, the switch doesn't get flipped, but that's an exception, not the rule. As Sucy has taken advantage of, Akko sleeps like a corpse prone to snoring.

Diana doesn't "go to bed." As she confessed to Akko, when she goes to bed, it involves lying down, reading, working a few subtle magics to distract her, getting back out of bed, writing some, finding a new book if she's done with the first, just switching to a different book to put herself on a different mental track, getting back to her desk and writing again--maybe in her diary this time--listening to the radio, to podcasts, to old movies on her Croix-given tablet, and watching the hour hand slowly crawl from eight to nine to one to, on especially bad nights, three or four. Once or twice she had faced the school day on zero hours of sleep, and to Diana's credit, she has rocked it, and often she actually gets some sleep on those nights, in bed at eight and unconscious by ten.

Sleep has never been a friend of hers because she has always had too much to think about. We hardly need to discuss what she has to think about, for what she thinks about is anything and everything. And anything and everything, the stupefying vastness, the choking burden of it, refuses to let her mind be still, and the whispered promises of terrible nightmares steals her from sleep on some nights she actually succumbs to rest at a decent hour.

Akko doesn't make those things go away.

But when they have a chance to share a bed--Akko spending the night in Diana's room, or Diana huddling next to Akko in her twin-size bunkbed--the problems all seem more distant.  
The drugs help, yes. But the company of a beautiful young woman who had no problem relaxing into a deep sleep, warm and breathing and dreaming in her bed, well, it invited rest. Her rhythmic breathing serenaded her; her clumsy arms and legs, splayed wide, soon rest on her out of instinct. Their legs tangle. The smell of their hair mingles.

A garden of roses.

This is a form of torture. They don't get to sleep with each other all that often. More nights than not, Diana stares at the clock and watches it count down to morning while Akko is already conked out in her bed, oblivious to all but strange dreams.

The absence is vast. The nightmares are bad, waking or sleeping.

Life is unkind to lovers. Every minute that passes is a minute never to return. A life only has so many minutes, and one day they are all gone, and so many of them could have been filled with love and togetherness and happiness that were instead spent waiting for sleep, fearing the emptiness of the hours, worrying about how few minutes either of them had, or worse, how many hours of emptiness.

The absence of Akko, the absence of Diana, is a survivable torture. The gaolers are merely the fear in Diana's head, a cloud of malaise waiting to change into exactly what she fears most at the hour, and the worry in Akko's heart, the nagging sensation she should be doing more, could be doing better, and that she is doing Diana dirty by failing to find exactly what.

The wounds all vanish those nights when they can be together. And when they can't be together at night... they can still be together. They kiss; they cuddle.

Occasionally they solve a pirate's riddle.

4\. Solving a Pirate's Riddle

Like today, when Akko was carrying Diana like a prize across the Luna Nova lawn, the two of them intending to take a nice walk through the haunted woods to find reagents for homework. It was a foggy day and as they reached the treeline three men in long black coats and red mantles emerged from the fog. Besides the coats, they wore yellow pants, no shirts, and geometric pyramidal hats that gently hovered across the backs of their heads.

"Put down the blonde and nobody gets hurt!" the one in the lead said. He had a name tag that read KISS. Akko realized the shape of his hat was vaguely like a tricorn; given the blue skin, he must have been a space pirate. Hot damn! The first non-lesbian space pirate on Earth! He leveled an arcane pistol at Akko's head. "This place is choked with orgone and we won't let it fester!"

"Hi!" Akko said. "Could you repeat that but in English? Or Japanese?"

"I can do French or German, too," Diana said.

The one to Kiss's right, their left, was seemingly named CUDDLE. "Orgone, the energy of lust," he said. "It's too much for this base Earth and we won't have it."

To Kiss's left, their right, was TORTURE. "So stop being so damn lovey-dovey and we won't put a hole in you."

Akko considered how to respond to this assertion, and formulated the exact perfect response. "Eat my ass, bitch. _Hi-yah!_" Akko said, throwing Diana at Kiss. Instinctively Diana assumed the correct pose for a flying kick and punted the lead guy directly on the nose.

A brief but brutal fight ensued. The space pirates evaporated into clouds of sexless hydrogen once they were good and defeated.

"I guess we solved that pirate's riddle," Akko said, holstering her wand.

"What riddle?" Diana said, aiming down the sights of the irregularly-shaped pink magipistol. She took a potshot at a tree, which exploded.

"I don't know," Akko said.

5\. Violence

"Oh!" Akko said, later that night. "Ohh, the riddle was 'will you stop loving on your girlfriend if society says stop' and the answer was 'hell no.'"

"...pardon?" Diana said, looking away from a massive paperback copy of IT.

"The, whatsit, the blue people earlier. The space pirates? That was their riddle. I just solved it."

"Oh, now I remember." Diana pat Akko's head, as is tradition nowadays. "Good job."

Anxiety was a formless malaise. But cracking knuckles and putting the spurs to jerks was nice and concrete.

5-2. Violence Advocation

Tell your friends: strengthen your relationship by beating the hell out of people you disagree with! Tell the broken bodies of the people you thrash that Atsuko Kagari said it was cool!

5-3. Atsuko Kagari's Official Statement

Yo my life is like full of monsters and stuff.  
You aint' gotta fight nobody, it's cool.  
You got me and Di doin the fightin and that's good enough.  
Like go to the shelter and hug a dog or something!! Lots of shelter dogs need hugs!! Give one a home and call them somethin super cute and start an Insta!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took all of my power to not use all three title drops at once ... and I did not have enough power, in the end.


	6. Tuber and Hoonis

**THE FUTURE**

  
Akko and Diana and Hildegarde lay together in bed, watching old home movies on the tablet.

"Oh, man,"Akko said, hitting full-screen. "Amanda took this one! No spoilers, but that sledgehammer winds up in a place you absolutely would not expect."

"Amanda? You mean that Amanda?" Hilde said. "The one who's Adam sometimes?"

"The one and the same," Diana said. "...and yes, she called herself a 'were-man' then, too."

They watched the video. The sledgehammer wound up flying through a roof and into a kitchen, causing a massive gas explosion.

"So much healing to dole out..." Diana said. "Memories. I must have spent half my mana on healing spells back in the Luna Nova days."

Akko nodded. "And at least half of that half went to me! I musta broke more bones than Jackie Chan. And lost more arms! ... Ah, Mormo, I miss Luna Nova. Maybe this whole situation will get fixed up by the time--" Akko's wrist-phone went off. "Ah, wait, sorry guys. Gotta take this one." She tapped the faceplate. "Moshi moshi, Akko speaking?"

"Yo," Constanze said. "The TroubAlert's gone off and we have issues in space. You have any unreasonably hot peppers on you, Froggo?"

(A speech therapy class taken in her final year at Luna Nova had worked wonders.)

"I think Diana got some last night," Akko said, rolling out of bed. "Did you, hon?"

"No," Diana said, slotting her wand back into place. "I bought cabbage."

"Is that spicy?" Akko said.

Silence.

"Did you just ask if cabbage was spicy?" Constanze said.

"I... might..." Akko said. "Is it?"

"No," Constanze said. "No, it is not. It is absolutely not. How did you live this long and not learn basics about cabbage? Cabbage, mother pus bucket?"

"Hold tight, Hilde," Diana said, kissing her daughter's forehead, "we'll be right back. ... This is a 'right back,' right?"

"Fifty-fifty," Constanze said. "Get to the store immediately."

Diana tapped a few buttons on her own smartwatch. "If we're not back in an hour, the babysitter protocol will activate. Be good, honey."

"Sure, ma!" Hilde said, waving as her mothers left through the sliding glass door, grabbing their wands and their plasma casters and soaring into the early-evening sky, full of wispy clouds, hovering airships, and swarms of thirsting nanomachines.

Hilde snagged the tablet and immediately began to play her favorite freemium game, Battle Saddle. James Cameron's Avatar: The Dark And Gritty Reboot event was well underway, having finally replaced the overlong promo for the finally-cancelled Avatar 2: Definitely Coming Out, and she had some dark reboot monsters to collect.

* * *

An hour later, the babysitter bot emerged from hiding.

"Hey, Hilde," he said, waving a many-clawed talon.

"Yo," Hilde said. She had finally rolled a two-star Scorpion With Angry Eyebrows Drawn On It, and so could now compete in the two-star big leagues.

"You good?" the robot said.

"Yup," Hilde said.

"Good!" the robot said. "I'm gonna go pace around aimlessly making sure nobody kidnaps you." He rolled off and out of the grownup bedroom and into the rest of the house.

"Sure," Hilde said once he was out of earshot. She had her Akkomom's attentiveness combined with her Dianamom's attention span; a deadly combination if ever there was one. But at least today she was content with grinding tokens to get Larger Duck Than Is Normal at five stars.

* * *

Not two weeks ago she had turned that attention to building a dam. She got the idea from the "[long list of characters] build a dam in the [location they should not be building a dam]" category on a few of her favorite fanon wikis. (For, you see, they were all just a transcript of the dam-building scene from the darker, edgier reboot of the IT TV miniseries [specifically] with the names changed.) She had wandered into the woods near home, found a stream, found a decent selection of fallen branches, and gone to town, carrying on as the devil-sun rose higher in the sky. She didn't know a lot about dam-building, but that's what friend Cell Phone was there to do. She absorbed the instructions and thought like a busy little beaver. She had nearly blocked up the stream entirely when she decided to pull up one of the tiny baby trees to act as a capstone.

There was a mechanical snap and a burst of sparks. The tree, it turned out, had been one of those cyber-trees invented to make trees feel less jealous of human cyborgs, and what she thought was a little baby tree was in fact a sensory limb for a massive cyber-sequoia that had moved to Germany for extremely ill-defined purposes.

At least it couldn't give a satisfactory answer when Akkomom finished kicking its ass. Maybe the police got an answer out of it later.

After that situation was settled (she didn't wait for the police, Akkomom; she just threw the tree in the direction of the police station and told the tree not to crush anything expensive or alive when it landed), the two sat by the creek.

"So what was that all about?" Akkomom said.

"I just wanted to make a dam..." Hildegard said.

"I see that," Akko said. "What I mean is, what's the deal with pullin' that whole tree up, or tryin' to?"

"I thought it'd be cool, is all," Hilde said.

"Now, now," Akko said, "just 'cause it'd be cool isn't a good reason to do something. Nobody's even watching you! It's just you and the woods. Plus, that looked like a little baby tree. Trees live a jillion years and that one was just getting started, so people woulda been super friggin' mad if you killed it. You know? It's rude. Stick to sticks."

"Gotcha," Hilde said. (Diana would give her the moral reasons for not killing baby trees willy-nilly later.)

"Wanna get some ice cream at the Timeburger?"

"Yeah!" Hilde said.

* * *

Diana and Akko were back before ten, but not long before. Hilde had managed to get off the grinding-for-gacha train when the tablet ran out of batteries because she was too involved with grinding to notice that she wasn't plugged in, and so she occupied the rest of the time by moving to her own tablet and getting lost watching more of moms' old YouTube videos and Insta photo downloads (RIP Instagram).

Her moms had left on brooms and returned on a Constron, a fifteen-foot-tall mechanical approximation of Constanze, who had grown zero centimeters since Luna Nova and to her incredible dismay appeared to, in fact, be a little person, much like one of Aunt Lotte's wives. Some supposed that she took her verticality-based rage out on physics by building all those giant robots.

Others say that was some Freud-level basic bitch psychology, but also almost certainly correct.

"Your moms are gonna have to buy new brooms!" Akko said, hopping from the hand of the Constron onto the second-story balcony.

"And, unfortnately, we have some homework tonight," Diana said, landing next to Akko. She hefted an evil-looking metal box.

"Aww," Hilde said. "It's not even a school night!"

"Such is the agony of adulthood," Diana said.

"But I brought sandwiches!" Akko said, wiggling a plain brown bag. "And Amanda sent us some Big Red!" In her other hand she raised a 2-liter of bright crimson libation.

"Yay!" Hilde said, actually jumping in excitement.

"Not too much before bed," Diana said, patting her head. "Now, wash your hands and meet us at the dinner table."

* * *

Hilde ate, fluttered around the house a while, and fell into a deep coma in her upstairs bedroom before the hour was out. That left Akko and Diana to work on the box in the kitchen.

"I am so glad she sleeps like you," Diana said. Her wand was fixed on deep grooves in the surface of the box, magically compelling marble tiles to slither along and lock into place in significant patterns.

"Yeah," Akko said. "Which is kind of weird, if you think about it."

"I'd rather not," Diana said. "Some things are best left to the great mechanism of the universe. So ong as the workings are benign, they need no thought from I."

"There's a girl!" Akko said, patting her head just like Diana pat their daughter's head. "I remember that time you freaked out about a day trip to Blytonbury. Now you're shrugging off 'why is the girl we adopted like some weird combo of our different traits like we had her for ourselves.'"

Hildegard was a German girl who lost her parents to spontaneous combustion at the age of 3. Last year, Akko and Diana found her after Brexit, still alone after four years, and realized that perhaps, somehow, they were ready to take on the responsibility of parenthood. Or maybe parenthood would be a pleasant distraction compared to the weight of the quest hanging over their shoulders.

Brexit had happened at last, and it had been a shitshow to end all shitshows. The entire United Kingdom had been lifted into the air on many, many, many hot-air balloons, and in a plan that Prince Devilsknife said was absolutley not based on any video game of any sort, now floated across the globe trying to reestablish the British Empire in as bloody and strange a fashion possible. Knocking the UK out of the sky was not possible; the ensuing crash would end the world. The US was in no position to help, though the 1,000th president swore that he would send aide as soon as they got America sutured back together.

(There had been a very, very bad car accident in the year before the election, and then an even worse one after the election, necessitating a second emergency election. Thus the president number skipped a few spaces.)

Luna Nova, as it happens, was kidnapped with the rest of the people of the UK. Diana, Akko, and the rest of the New Nine swore their powers to end the Brexit and put things right, no matter how many invincible cyborg armies they had to dismantle, no matter how many moon colonies they had to beat the ass of.

Or, as in tonight, how many evil boxes they had to solve over pastrami-on-rye.

"Akko," Diana said.

"Yeah?" Akko said.

"When this is over... I think I want to try for a biological baby of our own."

Akko blinked. "Like... a baby-baby? That one of us has?"

"Yes."

"Sure. I really dig Hilde. Who's gonna carry 'em?"

"Well, it depends. You're the better shapeshifter. You'd likely have..."

"I get it. So, do you want me to..."

"You know what a sperm bank is, right?"

Akko giggled. "You said 'sperm.'" After a minute she realized what Diana was getting at and laughed properly. "Oh, man! Oh, jeez. That sounds hilarious. Absolutely. So you're gonna carry, then?"

"I believe so," Diana said, swelling with pride. "I believe I'm in the right place, emotionally and physically. I've never believed in a brighter future than now."

"All the solar farms and Godzillas are probably helping with that," Akko said, nodding.

"Perhaps. Or maybe it's you," Diana said. "Through all the horrors we've seen, through all the invasions and attacks and curses... you've always been there, to catch me, to lift me up, to teach me by example. With you at my side, I can believe in--"

The box opened up.

"Oh, goodness."

The two ducked for cover.

From the depths of the box emerged two vile specters whose shadow darkened the kitchen.

"Oh my mother's gods!" Hannah said, looking at her hands in shock. "We exist again!"

"It's like we never left!" Barbara said, looking for a knife. "We're even in... where is this place?"

"Who are you?" Diana said, peeking over the counter. Her wand was in her hand, ready to blast away with a killing spell.

Hannah spun around to face her. "It's us! Your beloved roommates, Hannah England and that bitch with the blue hair! We fell into an awful space-time hole and were retroactively removed from existence! But now you've--"

"Now we're back!" Barbara said, stepping in front of Hannah.

Hannah picked up the box and hit Barbara in the back of the head really really hard.

"Now _I'm_ back," Hannah said, stepping on Barbara's unconscious body.

Akko furrowed her brow. "Where were these jerks from?"

"I think..." Diana felt a pain in her head. "No... I remember now. They were... my..."

"Study buddies?" Akko said.

"...no, I lost it."

"...Can I marry you?" Hannah said.

"Already taken," Diana said, showing her ring finger. "For one. For another? _No_." She tapped a code on her wrist phone. "I've called some police to help you. Now please leave my house..." She glanced at Akko.

"Tuber and Hoonis," Akko said.

"Please leave my house, Tuber. And please take Hoonis with you."

Grumbling, Hannah dragged Barbara out of the house by her hair.

"Well, that's one problem done," Akko said. "Just another day in the year 2022."

"I, for one, am ready to go to bed," Diana said. "Shall we?"

"We shall, beautiful woman I married who lives in my house," Akko said, kissing her.

* * *

That night, Akko, Diana, and Hilde slept wonderfully.

The future was looking bright.

* * *

Oh, I guess Hanbarb are okay.

Pretty okay.

In the drunk tank.

Full of **giant spiders.**

* * *

Oh, right. A handful of those giant spiders and opossums that Jasminka kept escaped captivity and bred true. Now one in every two people in continental Europe are a giant spider or an opossum or a giant spider riding on an opossum. They're friends, you see.

It's pretty alright, though.

If you're not afraid of **giant spiders.**


	7. Lunch Pipe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Free Day Choice: SPOOKY

"May you be blessed with a million possums." -- Wamapoke greeting

* * *

Imagine, if you will:  
The screen format is 4:3. Black bars of static cut in at the start, and conspicuously when there is a return from the commercials this recording skipped. The frame rate is smooth, just a little too smooth; there is no motion blur selling the speed and power of strong movements, the mundane is a little too dry, the fantastic a little less so.  
It is a television movie from that twilit period before the 1980s truly ended and the 1990s truly began. Akko and Diana are in it.  
It is called--

* * *

An everyday, normal sort of suburban house.

It's gigantic, it's perfectly clean, and it implies that the people living there are definitely in the "upper" part of "upper middle class," but the clean lines, the minimalist decorations, the generic nature of it, it feels like a house in a catalogue, a what-if. It sells the just-like-you-and-me fiction, the intent of commonness. Rich people would at least make the house look tackier, if not more personal.

Oh, Akko's here.

Akko is wearing a red turtleneck sweater and tight jeans. She's running for a wall-mounted phone. She picks it up and shouts into the receiver--not that it was ringing or that she's dialed anything--"What in the absolute H is up with this house, yo?!"

Overdubbed, a spooky voice speaks: "This house was never yours to begin with."

"I didn't say it was, but continue," Akko says.

The camera zooms in on Akko's face as she tries to decide on an expression. The voice carries on.

"In a time you have no words to describe, this place was calved from the ninth-dimensional womb of the Black Goat."

"Can we say 'womb' before 7 o'cock?" Akko says.

"Are you going to let me finish?"

"Jeez, a lady's gotta speculate now and again... fine, I'll keep my mouth shut." She nibbles on her knuckle while the voice resumes.

"The peoples who have dwelled before have rejected this land, as they well should. In your hubris you have built where no mortal foot should tread and laid claim to ground that no infinitesimal beast such as you can dream to lay claim."

"I'm gonna look that word up," Akko says, "and if it means something mean I'm gonna find you and I'm gonna punch you... jackass." She hangs up, crosses her arms over her chest, and sighs. "Well, my weekend is shot. And it's only Friday." She glances to the right, and after an overlong beat her eyes widen. "Oh crap Diana's on the top floor!"

She beats feet in a record-shattering way. She vaults over the counter, over tables, and practically wall-jumps up the stairwell. There's a rough cut and we're upstairs.

Diana is in her room, combing her hair. The camera is positioned at an angle that we can't see the camera in the mirror, and it's real obvious that's why, because it's not an ideal angle for anything we're seeing now. That thing we're seeing is a shadowy black shape--someone in a black morphsuit with a blurriness filter applied to them--is reaching its hand into frame, reflected in the mirror before it appears in frame, perilously close to Diana's shoulder. She doesn't see it.

The camera yanks back and Akko Sonic spindashes through the door. Not hyperbole; she unfolds in midair and sticks a superhero landing on the carpet. The black figure shoots up straight, startled; with a shout Akko picks up a spear that's just lying there and flings it full-force at the ominous force.

This cut is also pretty awkward. The position of Diana's makeup and combs are different than in the previous shot, and there's a large splotch on the wall that's been worked over with some pretty strong cleaning chemicals. But Diana's okay. "Akko!" she says. "What was that all about?"

"Ain't you noticed, Di?" Akko says, looking around frantically. "Something's off. Ain't you noticed the frame rate's all weird? Things are feelin' a little more... live..." She picks up the bed. The entire bed. Underneath it is a large hole. Given the apparent budget, it is a shockingly convincing bottomless-pit effect. "A ha. Monster hole. Called it." She crams the bed into the hole and kicks it down, then kicks it at an angle, not quite plugging the hole, but definitely making it much, much harder for Diana to accidentally fall into it.

Diana stares blankly at the bed hole. She's looking a little pale, which is an accomplishment for someone who is, to put it as honestly as possible, a white-ass honky.

The camera focuses on Akko again. "Now, come on, Diana, we're gettin' the hecky out of this house before some other weird supernatural crap kicks in."

"But... we've just moved in," Diana says.

"Yeah, to the Death Space Monster House," Akko says. She picks up Diana and sets her on her shoulder with the effort of wearing a plush kitten. "We outie."

Akko turns and runs for the window, but she skids to a halt when she sees they face not out into the street, or the sky, or even into the gray metal blandness of a movie set away from where the movie is happening. The window looks out on emptiness. An absence of being.

"Okay," Akko says, turning away. "That's just another hole. No hole falling this year."

"We're already inside," Diana says, dreamily. "It's too late. It will always be--"

"Idea," Akko says, and she jumps up. Very up. Straight through the ceiling.

* * *

Another cut. There's crash sound effects, but Akko's already got her feet planted on either side of the ceiling hole, and Diana is lightly sprinkled with wood debris. The attic is not an attic, it's a basment. There's floorboards, but there's no peak to the roof, no windows. The walls are wet concrete. There's a boiler. This has been hastily redressed.

By who?

"Alright, Diana," Akko says, setting her on the ground and brushing her off, keeping one hand firmly on her shoulder the entire time, "on the count of three, we're gonna magic our way out of this."

"Magic?" Diana says.

"Oh, dammit," Akko says. "Okay... plan B. We go up those stairs."

"Where would they go? This is the attic."

"Is it?"

* * *

Cut.

Akko is just beating the absolute shit out of the kitchen from earlier, scream-singing "Rock of Ages." Diana watches in awe. Black blood pours out of the walls where Akko's fist shatters the facade; the noise of cracking the supports is like that of breaking bones. We're well past foley work here. This is the real deal, sharp and bright and unpleasant on an instinctive level.

"Wanna join in?" Akko says.

"How did you get so strong?" Diana says.

"Witch. Super strength. And like a billion ab crunches." Akko pulls up her turtleneck, revealing a set of abs to kill for. "Hand me a walnut! Or a ball bearing!"

Diana is completely lost in the sauce. Her mouth hangs open. She's blushing.

"Oh, dammit, I got you hypnotized again." She rolls her abs. "Okay, time to bust out those hula moves you taught me. ... Right, it wasn't hula, it was... belly dancing?"

Diana nods. "Belly... dancing."

"Hell yeah. Plan C: turn you on so bad that you get your memory back." Akko has paid half-attention to Diana's lessons, but she has always stared at Diana really hard watching those hips at work, and so she was pretty alright at it.

"My God," Diana says.

"You mean your goat!" Akko says. "Hell, not just your goat, but you are G.O.A.T.! ... Crap, did that scan?"

"Are we married?" Diana says. Lower: "...is that in the script?"

"Honk the script, I started honking it the second I realized we were in a hole."

* * *

There was a sound, distant, but loud and true.

It cut through the immediacy, the kinetic inevitability.

It was a sound Akko had grown first annoyed by, and then used to, and now, here, in this place, she realized it was a sound of home, a sound of friendship.

It was the sound of a sweet, slightly skittish Finn saying "Phrasing!" at the sound of an accidental innuendo.

* * *

Akko picks Diana back up. Gooey black blood is smeared everywhere.

(Remember who's writing this.)

"Alright," Akko says, "we're gonna follow that 'phrasing.' It came from over..."

She sprints out of the kitchen, and the cuts are frantic now as Akko plunges through hallway after hallway, room after room. They stop making sense more or less immediately. They're just one set after the other, beds and fans and computers (fat tower computers with fatter cathode-ray monitors), air conditioners face-down on the ground with cords dangling, VCRs hanging from the ceiling by bungee cords, a lunch pipe, dolls with eyes carefully sewn out or whited or blacked out, Joe Verm's Big Volleyball(tm), the Pope's train, apples and dapples, and sheets stained with... something. Not blood, usually. The sheets are occasional at first, but they grow in profusion, limply draping against walls and across thresholds, then twisted and tied into ropes and braids, and now, here, where Akko's heedless charge finally comes to a stop, they form a massive web, sheet upon sheet upon sheet tied corner to corner or in thick knotted ropes she could hardly hope to squeeze through. She's stymied.

"Well," Akko says, "we may be trapped." A beat. "Did you see any sharp objects in the last few rooms? 'Cause I think we--"

She turns.

"No door. Door gone. Of course. Dammit!" She punts the wall, and it's not blood or plaster or wooden bone on the other side, but emptiness. "Son of a bitch! Yeah, I said it! Watershed's now and here in the Akkodome!"

She flips the emptiness off with both hands.

"You know, it's bad enough Diana has to tackle all the bullshit she's gotta tackle already! But every damn year, or whatever the hell amount of time this is all taking place of, some fuckbag's gotta try and drag her down into some kinda Sad Hole and make her into some kinda Sad Monster! ... Or a bunny, that one time! ... Anyway! Cut it with the creepy bullshit and gimmie your best shot, Big Bobo! I'm gonna beat your sheety ass so hard you'll be nomming on cotton for weeks--"

* * *

An opossum stuck its pointy white face through the sheet.

"Oh, hello, Sunshine Goodness," Diana said.

"Huh?" Akko said. "Hey, you feel that?"

"Like someone's taken a hoof off our chests?" Diana said.

There was a faint snipping noise, and some of Jasminka's bird-eating tarantulas finished chewing through the first wall o' sheets. On the other side, Constanze was whacking through with a gigantic two-handed katana-bladed machete purchased on a late-night sugar high from Cold Steel.

"Hey, guys," Akko said. "Did we fall in a hole?"

"Nope," Amanda said. She(?) was in one of her patented sharp suits and wearing a flamethrower.

"Hot damn!" Akko said.

"But you _are_ frozen in place staring at an evil VHS, so, you know. There's potential for a hole."

A distant, echoing "Phrasing!" resounded once more from the same direction.

"You better believe that's phrasing!" Amanda shouted back at the sound.

"Thanks, guys," Akko said, stepping gingerly around Jazzy's pets and the layers of snipped cloth.

Cons gave them a thumbs up.

"You gotta take it easy sometimes," Amanda said. "It's always 'world's about to end' or 'girlfriend's a monster' with you, goddamn. Maybe you should bowl again."

"We bowl every week now," Diana said. "It's good fun. I've been getting alright at it."

"There, yeah! Let's do more of that! Hell, how about we ride out when we're done here?"

"Hell yeah," Akko said, holding out a fist.

"Let's," Diana said, adding hers.

Amanda bumped, and Cons joined in, and a possum, too, with a furry grunt.

* * *

In the AV room, Akko and Diana disappeared.

"Oh, no!" Lotte squealed, squeezing her 59:1 scale Aurora-from-Beautiful-Darkness plush for comfort. She pat her plush back to soothe the horror her puppet wife must be feeling.

"Wait for it..." Jasminka said, eating a Nutella donut.

The TV and tape deck exploded, and Akko and Diana and Amanda and Cons and several dozen opossums and bird-eating spiders were liberated from the explosion. "Woo!" Akko said, setting Diana firmly on the ground where she had been sitting before. "That was fun."

"No," Diana said, "it absolutely wasn't. But it's done. And somebody said 'bowling.'"

"Wait," Amanda said, gesturing with her flamethrower's nozzle in a way that brutally violated every single rule of gun safety, to Cons's consternation, "I haven't gotten to use it. Akko gets chainsaws, Diana gets swords, Cons has guns, Jazzy's got pets..."

There was a knock at the door, and Hannah peeked in.

"Hello~" she said. "It looks li..." She got a good look at Boy Mode Amanda, blushed furiously, and backed out.

Barbara looked again. "You're still alive, Akko? ... I mean, of course you are, but I guess I could've been worried that accidentally ... something... happen..."

Amanda flicked on the pilot light. "Keep talkin', Hoonis."

Barbara closed the door and (judging from the sound of her terrified footsteps) sped away.

"Callin' it," Amanda said, kissing the barrel of her flamethrower.

"Phrasing!" Lotte shouted.

"What the hell are you even phrasing-ing about?" Amanda said.

"She's meta-aware of the story describin' our lives!" Akko said. "If there's a reality where our reality is represented by text, then whoever is jotting it down constantly writes stuff that's a double entendre and it's drivin' her completely nuts."

"...that... makes sense," Diana said, turning the idea around in your head. "That's frankly brilliant. Where did you--what gave you this thought?"

"I don't think that was blood the house was bleeding," Akko said, looking at her hands. "And I was up to my elbows in that crap."

Constanze retrieved the VHS from the ruins of the tape deck. Her pupils constricted.

She held it out for the others to see. Scrawled on the label was the phrase DWELL OF SOULS.

"Oooh..." Akko said. "...I... don't know what that means."

"...I don't either," Diana said.

"Later," Cons said, tucking the tape into her vest. She mimed throwing a ball. "Bowling."

"Yeah," Akko said. "This latest... whatever you call it... it's not been too spooky. I could go with less spooky."

They went bowling, the lot of them, the New Nine, minus Chariot and Croix, who were up to shenanigans of their own.

The tape remains enshrined with Constanze, secreted beneath her vintage Crystal Castle playset, now joined by the Target She-Ra dolls that just came up. And she wonders. She wonders very hard about some of the weird experiences Diana and Akko had.

And she realizes, disconcertingly, that the tense has just changed;

And she hopes, the little German does, that this is not foreshadowing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for a great Diakko Week, errybody!
> 
> If you need to refresh yourself on your Tom Hanks filmography to get all my title references, here's my favorite guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQOf_WaaJfE


End file.
